In order to guarantee future generations a fair and consistent level of
environmental quality is necessary to ensure sustainable development of coastal
resources.
Adopting a static mode approach towards sea-level rise conflicts with sustaining
a dynamic coastal system that responds to perturbations via sediment movement
and long-term evolution. In the monitoring of this long-term evolution ancient
technologies has played a very important role. Among these the satellite
positioning is becoming more and more relevant.
This paper presents a brief survey of the evolution of GNSS (Global Navigation
Satellite Systems) application in coastal processes. The Global Position System
(NAVSTAR GPS) is the best known of these satellite navigation systems. Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is the standard generic term for satellite
navigation systems that provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global
coverage. A GNSS allows small electronic receivers to determine their location
(longitude, latitude, and height) to within a few metres using the signals as
transmitted by the GNSS satellites. In the same process the receivers also
calculate the precise time of the signal reception and as such GNSS receivers can
be used as highly accurate clocks.
Currently, the United States NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is the
only fully operational GNSS. The Russian GLONASS is a GNSS in the process
of being restored to full operation. The European Union's Galileo positioning
system is a next generation GNSS in the initial deployment phase. China has
indicated it may expand its regional Beidou (also called COMPASS) navigation
system into a global system. India's IRNSS, is also a next generation GNSS.
However, its status and future is unclear as India seems to have entered into a
close cooperation with the Russians on the GLONASS system. Satellite
Positioning, for this reason, is very popular and its accuracy can support a large
number of navigation and timing applications. However, it is generally
recognized that these systems lacks the accuracy, integrity, and availability to
satisfy the more critical applications. This has led to the development of
techniques to augment the basic GPS service.
The goal of this paper is to introduce an overview of aforesaid technologies and
to present the improvement outcome from their integration (multi constellation)
and their augmentation (SBAS – Satellite Based Augmentation Systems) in
terms of positioning accuracy, very important in the definition of long-term
sediment movement and system integrity.

In order to guarantee future generations a fair and consistent level of
environmental quality is necessary to ensure sustainable development of coastal
resources.
Adopting a static mode approach towards sea-level rise conflicts with sustaining
a dynamic coastal system that responds to perturbations via sediment movement
and long-term evolution. In the monitoring of this long-term evolution ancient
technologies has played a very important role. Among these the satellite
positioning is becoming more and more relevant.
This paper presents a brief survey of the evolution of GNSS (Global Navigation
Satellite Systems) application in coastal processes. The Global Position System
(NAVSTAR GPS) is the best known of these satellite navigation systems. Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is the standard generic term for satellite
navigation systems that provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global
coverage. A GNSS allows small electronic receivers to determine their location
(longitude, latitude, and height) to within a few metres using the signals as
transmitted by the GNSS satellites. In the same process the receivers also
calculate the precise time of the signal reception and as such GNSS receivers can
be used as highly accurate clocks.
Currently, the United States NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is the
only fully operational GNSS. The Russian GLONASS is a GNSS in the process
of being restored to full operation. The European Union's Galileo positioning
system is a next generation GNSS in the initial deployment phase. China has
indicated it may expand its regional Beidou (also called COMPASS) navigation
system into a global system. India's IRNSS, is also a next generation GNSS.
However, its status and future is unclear as India seems to have entered into a
close cooperation with the Russians on the GLONASS system. Satellite
Positioning, for this reason, is very popular and its accuracy can support a large
number of navigation and timing applications. However, it is generally
recognized that these systems lacks the accuracy, integrity, and availability to
satisfy the more critical applications. This has led to the development of
techniques to augment the basic GPS service.
The goal of this paper is to introduce an overview of aforesaid technologies and
to present the improvement outcome from their integration (multi constellation)
and their augmentation (SBAS – Satellite Based Augmentation Systems) in
terms of positioning accuracy, very important in the definition of long-term
sediment movement and system integrity.